1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments relate generally to viewing an on-demand video and more particularly to a flexible viewing periods for the on-demand video rental.
2. Background Art
Home video rentals of movies have traditionally been offered with fixed rental periods. This began with rentals of movies on videotape, where retention of the videotape by one customer meant that the rental merchant could not rent the same videotape to another customer. For roughly the first two decades of the home video rental industry, rental on a nightly basis was the dominant business model.
As video-on-demand rentals of movies became available, the rental of a movie to one customer no longer prevented the video-on-demand service provider from renting the same movie to other customers. However, the fixed rental period model was already well-established in the minds of both consumers and movie studios, and consequently, fixed movie rental periods were adopted for early video-on-demand systems. These systems typically implemented rental periods of twenty-four to forty-eight hours. For example, the early DIVX rental system enabled a forty-eight-hour rental period of forty-eight hours beginning at first playback. Cable systems typically implement a twenty-four hour rental period, beginning at the time of order.
For simplicity and convenience of implementation, cable systems have typically also implemented a twenty-four rental period for subscription video on demand orders. That is, when a subscriber orders an asset that is part of a subscription package, a twenty-four hour viewing window is typically imposed, despite the fact that there is no transactional charge for the order, and the user is free to re-order the asset, at no additional cost, so long as the asset remains available as part of the subscription package. Therefore, the user need not complete viewing the asset within the twenty-four hour period. The need to re-order creates two disadvantages, however. The user must again navigate through the user interface to locate the asset for re-order (as opposed to finding it directly in an “active rentals” list), and upon re-ordering, the user will have lost any bookmark allowing playback to be restarted where it last ended.
Since the advent of video-on-demand, there have been significant changes in the movie rental market. In particular, NetFlix's subscription DVD mail-order rental service significantly changed the rental model, by effectively eliminating late charges and allowing subscribers to retain a rented DVD as long as they wish. In response, local retail movie rental businesses extended typical rental periods to as much as two weeks without late charges.
Consequently, the twenty-four hour rental periods still typically used by cable operators (and required by movie studios) has become increasingly unattractive to consumers.
Accordingly, what is needed is a new, more flexible viewing period for video-on-demand that will satisfy the movie studios' fundamental desire that movie rentals reflect a very limited duration access to the rented product, while simultaneously satisfying the consumer's desire for flexibility in viewing and confidence that, once they have paid for a movie, they will be able to complete watching the entire movie at their convenience.
Furthermore, what is also needed is a viewing period for subscription assets that will maintain easy access, and retain any established bookmarks, so long as the asset remains available, and the user has not yet completed viewing the asset.